Someday
by ShirleyYouJest
Summary: Sybil/Tom. A moment between Sybil and Branson in the garage and an unexpected discovery leads Sybil to do some soul-searching. Lots of suppressed longing and sexual tension. Set post-proposal, pre-acceptance. UPDATE: I will be continuing this!


The soft click of Sybil's heels brought a smile to Tom's face as he lay on his back underneath the belly of the Renault. "Hello there," he said as she approached, finishing tightening a bolt. "I'm glad it's you."

"Are you?" she asked, sounding a bit surprised as she came around to the front of the car.

"Of course," he said, smiling as he rolled out from beneath the car. Sybil stared and blushed as he sat up on the dolly, squinting into the sunlight at her. "I know you'll not tell on me for being in just my undershirt. Carson would hit the roof if he knew."

"I - of course I won't tell," she stammered, looking down so that he wouldn't see her staring.

Tom caught her embarrassment and was unsure what to make of it. Was she offended? God knew he didn't want to upset her or prove her suspicions that he was not a gentleman correct.

"It's just it's so bloody hot, I couldn't stand it," he said by way of explanation, standing and putting his wrench in his pocket.

"I don't blame you," she said, looking up at his face for a moment before her eyes wandered down involuntarily to his bare arms, all sinewy muscle and - she shook her head and looked away. "It's quite miserable out. I broke into a sweat myself just walking down here."

He walked towards her and was stopped just in front of where she stood at his workbench. She fixed her gaze somewhere just below his neck, afraid to look him in the eye, but realizing that staring at his chest was not doing much more to calm her nerves. Then he leaned towards her and for one terrific second she thought, _he's going to kiss me. _She felt simultaneously thrilled and terrified at the prospect, an unsettling combination that set her stomach twisting into knots and made the oppressive heat seem even more stifling. 

But he was only reaching for his washcloth behind her.

"Oh," she said out loud, and then felt very stupid, because she knew he must've sensed the disappointment in her voice, and then he would know what she had been thinking.

When she finally dared to look at him again, he was wiping his hands on the washcloth and studying her face intently. She swallowed, her throat feeling very dry. "I guess I should put my shirt back on before someone less discreet than you discovers my insubordination," he said, trying to lighten the mood again, to ease some of the unbearable tension that suddenly permeated the garage.

"Yes!" she said, a bit too quickly, a bit too excitedly. "I mean - we don't want you getting into any more trouble, do we?"

"Certainly not," he said, smiling. "Now, where'd I put the damn thing?"

They both turned and looked about the garage, eager for a distraction. It was Sybil that found it first, draped over a chair in the corner. Just as she was moving to retrieve it, she spotted an open container of oil on the table beside it. And then, before the thought had even firmly coalesced in her head, she had done it - she had deliberately back-handed the canister, upsetting it onto the pristine white shirt, thoroughly soaking it.

"Oh, God, Branson, I'm so sorry!" she said, putting a hand up to her mouth, surprised and confused at her own action. She knew that she had done it on purpose and yet she could hardly think why, and then it hit her - flustered as she was by his state of undress, _she did not want him to put his shirt back on. _

He was there instantly, uprighting the canister and sopping up the oil dripping onto the garage floor. "It's alright," he said comfortingly. "I've got plenty more just like this one."

"Shall I go fetch you another?" she asked.

"That's alright, I can get it myself," he said, not wanting to give her any trouble.

"No, no," she insisted. "Someone might see you going for it and then you'll be in trouble for being out of your uniform. Where do you keep the others?"

"On the shelf in my closet in the cottage," he said, frowning a bit. "But won't _you _be in trouble if someone sees you going into my cottage?"

"I'll - I'll tell them I was ill and had to go for a glass of water," she said, a glib and believable lie.

"Alright," he said, "I'll clean this up while you're gone."

Inside the cottage, Sybil felt disoriented and nervous. She had never been in one of the servants' private quarters before - but then, she reminded herself, Branson wasn't a servant, not really - he was her friend, he was - where was the closet?

It was a small space, so it was not hard to find. Looking up to the top shelf, she saw a stack of white dress shirts, neatly folded. Standing on tiptoe to reach one, she pulled the top oneoff the stack - and with it fell down a small, leather-backed book, which landed, open, directly at her feet.

She knew that she should put it back immediately, but when she picked it up and saw that it was filled with handwriting instead of text, she realized it was a journal - not just _a _journal, _Branson's _journal - and she felt immobilized, her eyes staring fixed at the page in front of her.

_"I can't stop thinking about her, even now," _it read. "_I know I shouldn't, I know it's hopeless, but I can't stop." _Her heart ached to read the words, and she told herself, _close the book, just close the bloody book, no good can come of this... it will only make things harder... _But still her eyes scanned the page. "_She's the last thing I think about when I go to sleep and the first I think of when I wake up... it's really the dreams, though, that are killing me. At least when I'm awake I have _some_ control over my own mind. I can't choose what I dream, though, and when I dream it's all her - eyes and lips and breasts and hips and she's saying my name, over and over, and she's as desperate for me as I am for her -"_

"I wondered what was taking you so long," he said, his voice making her jump and drop the book. He was standing there, _right there_, close - too close, and the words she had just read were racing through her mind. _Saying my name - eyes and lips and breasts and hips - over and over - desperate - _

"I'm - I'm sorry," she said weakly, her head swimming, overpowered by the raw honesty of what she had just read - the knowledge of his continued feelings, and more than that, those aching, charged last words. It felt overwhelmingly, dizzyingly, smotheringly hot, and then her vision went white at the edges and he was saying something but her ears had stopped up like she was underwater, and her knees buckled.

She would've fallen to the floor, but his arms were around her before that could happen, and she was as limp as a ragdoll against him. She was still conscious, but just barely, and all she knew in that moment was how very solid he felt, his chest and arms like a brick wall: hard, unbending, steady. And his smell: like motoroil and leather and -

"You're alright, I've got you," he said gently, lifting her smoothly - as he'd done once before - and placing her gently on his bed. _Bed,_ she thought dimly. _Branson's bed. I'm laying in Branson's - no, _Tom's - _bed._

Somehow Branson had gone and gotten a glass of water and was holding it to her lips, and she was swallowing stupidly, great sloppy, graceless gulps. She inhaled deeply and fell back against the pillows, and as her vision began to clear she saw his face, looming above her, troubled and searching. Dimly, she realized that he was holding her hand, and turning away from him towards the window, she closed her eyes and waited for him to speak.

"So it was that bad, was it?" he asked finally, a hint of joking in his voice to mask his concern.

She turned back to look at him. "What?" she asked, confused.

"What you read," he said. "Bad enough to make you faint." He looked down, embarrassed. "And to think, after all the blood and guts you've seen, that'd it'd be something as stupid as a journal to make your knees go."

"Branson, I'm so sorry," she said. "I never should've - I didn't really mean to, it's just that it fell off the shelf and - oh, _please _don't hate me."

"Hate you?" he said, his eyes wide and incredulous. Checking himself, he swallowed the lump in his throat before continuing. "Hate you?" he repeated, more softly. "How could you even say something like that? God knows what page you read, but whatever it was, you have to have seen that -" he broke off, looking away, and she saw him clench the hand that wasn't holding hers. After a beat, and very softly, he said, "I could never hate you." Then he laughed, humorlously, sardonically. "But I guess maybe you hate _me_ now."

"Branson, no," she said, sitting up a bit. "No, please don't think that." She paused and looked at him for a long moment before she said, "It _was _about _me _- wasn't it?"

"Could you doubt that it was for even a second?" he said, smiling slightly but his eyes looking miserable. "There's no one else for me, Sybil." He looked down, her name - _just _her name - hanging in the air between them. "You have to know that."

She wanted to kiss him - wanted so badly to tell him that yes, she would run away with him, _of course _she loved him, _of course _she did - but she couldn't. Not yet. Someday. But not yet. So she held her tongue and let the thick silence stretch out between them.

"You're not angry?" he asked after a long moment.

"No, I'm not angry," she said. "Of course I'm not angry. Actually I'm - I'm glad."

"What do you mean?" he asked, and she hated herself for the hopeful look in his eyes, the quiet, pleading, hopeful look - so utterly un-English, so vulnerable, so honest.

"I'm glad that you haven't given up on me yet," she said.

"God love you, Sybil," he said, bringing her hand to his lips and kissing it all over, too overcome to care very much about propriety or class differences or the possibility that at this very moment, someone might come bursting in his front door looking for her, for him, for _them - _was there a _"them"_? She knew then that she needed to leave as the words came flooding back to the forefront of her mind - her nerve-ends humming as she thought _he is _desperate _for me - for _me - _he has thought about my eyes, lips, breasts, hips - _And she shuddered with a delicious chill that shot down her spine as he placed three soft, wet, sucking kisses on her palm, kisses that were both sensual and sweet at the same time.

"You haven't decided to refuse me, then?" he said. "Even now?"

She shook her head. "Especially not now," she said softly.

His heart leapt in his chest as she looked at him, and he was leaning in towards her again, her lips parted, and her eyes fluttered closed as she felt his lips millimeters from hers, almost touching - then gasped and pulled away, overcome.

"I have to go," she said, sitting up and disengaging from him quickly. This - all of this - was too much for her to take in, too intoxicating for her to think clearly, and she felt desperate (there was that word, _desperate_) for some air. "Someone will miss me, and if they find me here, Papa will have you killed."

Tom looked crestfallen for a moment, but rallied quickly. "Well," he said, a little wistfully. "We can't have that."

"No," she said, smiling softly. "After all, I can't marry a dead man."

She let herself out of the cottage as he stared after her, still smiling to herself. _Not yet,_ she thought - _But someday. _


End file.
